Producing Youth : Producing Media

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Christina: In-Between, and Angry

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Transcript:

Miriam:

Talk to me about it too in the context of saying, well earlier, you were saying, sometimes I feel like I’m in this weird in-between place because I have to represent the young people that I work with, but I also have to get out there and be professional. So talk about that in the context of being sort of like a worker, but in a liminal space.

Christina: Yeah, yeah.

Miriam: A young worker who works with younger people.

Christina:

It’s empowering in some ways, like it feels good. It feels like wow I do gain respect from the peer educators because of what I do. I see that they can see me as like an inspiration too like, “Oh, one day, I want to be like Christina like I want work in something like this would just be cool."

But it does also make me feel a little, like I’m like selling the cause of youth in a way, but I’m not selling the cause of youth, but like I’m trying to identify, like I’m expressing my values, by what I do. Like I believe in this type of work.

I believe that youth should be given opportunities because I relate so much to my context, like when I was growing up, and I was their age, when I was 16 years old and the opportunities that were given to me weren’t, like my high school sucked. Like there were no extracurricular activities like this. I would have loved to be a peer educator and part of like my motivation is that I would be one of those people who would be into it's, and so it’s cool for them to see it happen.

But then also not getting frustrated with younger people not being into it and being like, “Why aren't you into it? I would have loved to have..” Like listening to my parents talk, like; Oh my god I’m becoming that - Do you realize how spoiled you guys are?

And also dealing with how youth are stigmatized in society around being like…I’m just thinking about what happened in Montreal north recently around like the racialized youth protesting this murder, this cop killing this 18-year-old boy, and then protesting, and then it turning into this violent act. And how it's like, it doesn’t help the image of youth being this like radical, like rambunctious force of like wild energy, but at the same time, than what happens is that you lose the message that there was a clear blatant form of racism that just happened of racial profiling that needs to be addressed, and it gets clouded by "oh well the youth were just too crazy", or whatever, like I feel it becomes simplified. The word youth simplifies the complex reality that these peopl are living. So it’s like, “Oh well, they’re just youth. They’re just young.

Miriam: But it also simplifies your job.

Christina: It does, yeah.

Miriam: I have the same reaction of looking at the newspaper, and thinking. "I can’t believe they were burning cars."

Christina: Yeah.

Miriam:

And then thinking it’s not my job to denigrate somebody. It’s not my job to say, “Oh, they overreacted. It’s my job to sort of try to be like huh, you must have been so upset.

Christina:

Why would they do it? Exactly, and they must have been upset for so many years, for generations, and then finally, like we’re going to peacefully protest. Fuck that. We’re going to burn some cars because we’re angry, and it really sucks because that anger doesn’t get seen in a positive light, it gets seen in a very negative light where; Wow, it makes me angry. At the end of the day, it makes me want to scream at the radio, and scream at the people on the street, but like it’s not going to do anything, but like definitely.

There's this anxiety too in being my age and what I do. Where my dad still doesn’t understand what I do, where he’s like, what do you do again? Why don’t you work for an oil company? Like you know because I do PR.So he's like; you don’t get paid, you’re below poverty line. What are you doing? When are you gonna get a real job?”

So my professionalism isn’t seen as a real professionalism. It’s seen as like this pretend youth dream that I’m living. I don’t know. But at the same time, like it means so much to me that I don’t care…I mean, I do, obviously I wanna get paid for my work. I don’t care that it's…to me, it’s just step in the right direction where I’m learning skills, that will bring me elsewhere. So yeah, but also, I really believe that youth-based work needs to be recognized as work, needs to be remunerated. Not seen as like volunteerism. So many of the peer educators thought I was a volunteer. They just thought I was a really nice lady like came around and raised money for the Sense Project. and I was like, “Hell, no ! I am not a nice lady." I am, but I’m not that nice.